Saturday, December 10, 2016

A lack of transparency persists when it comes to migrant workers’ rights, a new report has found. But who is to blame?

The plight of migrant workers in Gulf Arab countries was thrown into the spotlight several years ago when investigations revealed how dismal the working and housing conditions were for those building the infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Countless human rights violations were reported, revealing a dark side to the ‘beautiful game’.

The kafala sponsorship system, which is in place throughout the region, is widely seen as a source of exploitation. Migrant workers have reported confiscated passports, held back wages and employers’ refusal to grant exit visas.

Under heightened public pressure, governments and companies pledged to improve the situation. The emir of Qatar approved new rules to the sponsorship system, supposed to make it easier to change jobs and being able to leave the country. How much has really changed?

A new report on construction companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar, both major employers of migrant labour with large infrastructure projects underway, indicates the problem persists. “Construction companies operating in the Gulf are failing to protect migrant workers from abusive working arrangements, showing a concerning lack of transparency on the safeguards they have in place,” the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre said. Out of 100 companies, only 22 responded to a survey regarding the measures they are taking to stop the exploitation of migrant workers. Less than half of them had publicly available human rights commitments.

Speaking to The World Weekly, the NGO’s press officer, Joe Bardwell, was unequivocal about the importance of transparency, calling the fact that companies are not demonstrating their commitment a “major problem”.

“Transparency on human rights issues has been an important driver of progress in other sectors,” the report notes, pointing to the establishment of best practices. Several of those who failed to respond are involved in the construction of World Cup stadiums and three had received an award for excellence in labour relations in the UAE.

The lack of engagement “indicates not much action has been taken”, Mr. Bardwell said. This did not mean that there aren’t companies that are taking action and are not sharing it, he added, while stating that some companies were indeed leading the way in establishing best practices.

The suicide in September of an Indian construction worker at a building site in Qatar weeks after asking his employer to pay outstanding wages showed once again how precarious the situation of many migrant workers remains, especially amidst a downturn in oil prices hitting the energy-dependent countries in the Gulf.

For Dr. James Dorsey, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, it was clear that companies don’t feel compelled to engage, as there was “little pressure” on them, not least from FIFA in the case of World Cup host Qatar.

Both the UAE and Qatar were the countries that have taken the most steps in the region to address migrant workers’ rights, Dr. Dorsey, who runs a blog on the entanglement between football and politics in the Middle East, noted. Nevertheless, a lack of implementation in Qatar showed that neither the government nor FIFA have applied sufficient pressure to enforce mandated standards. The situation in the UAE was similar, he said.



For players and fans, a World Cup stadium is a place of dreams. For some of the workers who spoke to us, it can feel like a living nightmare.”

Salil Shetty , Amnesty International secretary general

As violations of migrant workers’ rights in Qatar and allegations of corruption made the headlines, the international football body faced increasing pressure to act; some even called for Qatar’s hosting rights to be suspended.

While seeing the government as the body primarily responsible for creating and implementing rules, Dr. Dorsey said FIFA had a responsibility as well. The organisation, mired by corruption scandals, earlier this year endorsed a report by John Ruggie, a former UN special representative for business and human rights. “FIFA is fully committed to respecting human rights,” FIFA President Gianni Infantino said, thanking Professor Ruggie for his recommendations on how to improve the body’s human rights record.

Despite these assurances, news broke this week that legal action against FIFA was filed in a Swiss court on behalf of a Bangladeshi migrant worker. “The Swiss court is asked to rule that FIFA acted wrongfully by selecting Qatar for the World Cup 2022 without demanding the assurance that Qatar observes fundamental human and labour rights of migrant construction workers, including the abolition of the kafala system,” a statement by the Netherlands Trade Union Confederation read.

Mr. Bardwell saw companies as responsible, while also highlighting that there had not been enough pressure from all sides.

“The awarding of the World Cup has already induced change,” Dr. Dorsey said, stating that Qatar was the only state in the Gulf region that had engaged with its critics. While praising the Qatari foundations for the policies they have adopted on migrant workers as a “start”, he urged that more needs to be done.

In the current global environment where labour rights are being put on the back burner, progress going forward looks doubtful, he concluded.

The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre expected more engagement after the release of the report. “Scrutiny is only going to increase,” Mr. Bardwell told The World Weekly.

Thursday, December 8, 2016

Two Bangladeshi and a Dutch trade union have sued FIFA in a
Swiss court in legal proceedings that challenge the world soccer body’s
awarding to Qatar of the 2022 World Cup because of the Gulf state’s
controversial labour regime. The case could call into question group’s status
as a non-profit and, if successful, open the door to a wave of claims against FIFA
as well as Qatar and other Gulf states who employ millions of migrant workers.

The legal proceedings come at a crucial moment in efforts by
trade unions and human rights groups to work with Qatar on reforming its kafala
or labour sponsorship system that puts workers at the mercy of their employers.

Those efforts, a unique undertaking in a part of the world
in which governments by and large refuse to engage and repress or bar their
critics, have already produced initial results. The question is how far Qatar
intends to push ahead with reform and to what degree it will feel the need to
do so in a world in which the rise of populism has pushed human and other rights
onto the backburner.

Trade unions and human rights argue that Qatar since winning
World Cup hosting rights six years ago has had sufficient time to bring its
labour system in line with international standards and that its moves so far
fall short of that.

A key milestone alongside the trade unions’ legal action and
a separate Swiss judicial inquiry into the integrity of the Qatari World Cup
bid is a looming deadline set by the International Labour Organization (ILO)
for Qatar to act on promises of reform that it has made.

The ILO warned last March that it would establish a Commission
of Inquiry if Qatar failed to act within a year. Such commissions are among the
ILO’s most powerful tools to ensure compliance with international treaties. The
UN body has only established 13 such commissions in its century-long history.
The last such commission was created in 2010 to force Zimbabwe to live up to
its obligations.

The Netherlands Trade Union Confederation (FNV), supported
by the Bangladesh Free Trade Union Congress (BFTUC) and the Bangladesh Building
and Wood Workers Federation (BBWWF), filed their complaint against FIFA on
behalf of a Bangladeshi migrant worker, Nadim Sharaful Alam.

Mr. Alam was forced as is the norm in recruitment for Qatar
to pay $4,300 to a recruitment agency in violation of Qatari law and FIFA
standards that stipulate that employers should shoulder the cost of hiring. To
raise the money, Mr. Alam had to mortgage land he owned, according to FNV
lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld. Mr. Alam is also demanding compensation for being the
victim of “modern slavery,” Ms. Zegveld said.

The FNV said in a statement that it wanted the court to rule
that “FIFA acted wrongfully by selecting Qatar for the World Cup 2022 without
demanding the assurance that Qatar observes fundamental human and labour rights
of migrant construction workers, including the abolition of the kafala system.”
FIFA is a Swiss incorporated legal entity.

The trade unions’ further demand that the court order FIFA to
ensure that in the run-up to the World Cup workers’ rights are safeguarded by
pressuring the Gulf state to enact and implement adequate and effective labour
reforms takes on added significance following the group’s decision to take over
responsibility for preparations of World Cups starting with the Qatar
tournament.

A Swiss government-sponsored unit of the Paris-based
Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which groups 34 of
the world’s richest countries, last year defined FIFA as a multi-national
rather than a non-profit that was bound by the OECD’s guidelines. The decision meant
that the soccer group would be responsible for upholding of the human and labour
rights of workers employed in Qatar on World Cup-related projects. A court
ruling upholding that principle would reinforce FIFA’s status as a business
rather than a non-governmental organization.

FIFA has repeatedly said that it was “fully committed to do
its utmost to ensure that human rights are respected on all FIFA World Cup
sites and operations and services directly related to the FIFA World Cup.” FIFA
has recently included provisions for labour standards in World Cup contracts
that kick in with the 2026 tournament.

The decision to take on responsibility for World Cups means that
FIFA no longer can hide behind assertions that it has no legal authority to
impose its will on host countries. In a letter to Ms. Zegveld and the trade
unions’ Swiss lawyers date 16 October 2016, FIFA Deputy Secretary General Marco
Villiger asserted however that “FIFA refutes any and all assertions…regarding
FIFA's wrongful conduct and liability for human rights violations taking place
in Qatar.” Ms. Zegveld noted that FIFA had refrained from denying the
violations themselves.

A recent survey of construction companies involved in World
Cup-related infrastructure projects in Qatar called into question whether the
Gulf state and FIFA were doing all they could do to enforce international
labour standards.

Less than a quarter of the 100 companies approached for the
survey by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre deemed it appropriate
to respond. Less than 40 percent publicly expressed a commitment to human
rights and only 17 percent referred to international standards. Only three companies
publicly acknowledged rights of migrant workers.

A human rights researcher with extensive experience in
studying recruitment of migrant labour in Asia said the system was controlled
by an international crime syndicate that benefitted from collusion between corrupt
senior government officials, company executives, and recruitment agencies that cooperated
across national borders at the expense of millions of unskilled workers. “Billions
of dollars are involved, all off the books, not taxed that come from migrant
workers,” the researcher said.

A trade union court victory could open the door to an
avalanche of cases by migrant workers demanding compensation for illegal
recruitment practices as well as being victims of a system that curtails
freedom of contract as well as basic human freedoms and workers’ rights. Those
cases could target not only FIFA but also Qatar and other Gulf states that
operate a kafala system. “This could just be the beginning,” said a trade union
activist.

Monday, December 5, 2016

A recent survey of construction companies involved in World
Cup-related infrastructure projects in Qatar raises questions about whether the
Gulf state and world soccer body FIFA are doing all that could do to enforce international
standards for the living and working conditions of migrant workers as well as
adherence to human rights.

The issue of Qatar and FIFA’s sincerity is underscored by the
fact that a majority of 100 companies operating in Qatar as well as the United
Arab Emirates, which prides itself on enacting the region’s most advanced
labour-related legislation and regulation, felt no need in a recent survey to
be transparent about their commitment to labour and human rights. The apparent
lack of pressure on companies suggests that Qatar and FIFA have so far passed
on opportunities to enforce adherence to standards.

Both Qatar and FIFA have been under pressure from human
rights groups and trade unions to reform the Gulf state’s onerous kafala or
labour sponsorship system that deprives workers of basic rights and puts them
at the mercy of their employers. The pressure on Qatar coupled with economic
difficulties as the result of tumbling energy prices have prompted virtually
all Gulf states to tinker with their labour regimes.

To be sure, Qatar has responded to the pressure by becoming
the only Gulf state to engage with its critics. It has also promised to
legislate initial reforms that fall short of activists’ demands by the end of
the year. Several major Qatari institutions, including the 2022 World Cup
organizing committee and Qatar Foundation, have adopted standards and model
contracts that significantly improve workers’ living and working conditions.

Those standards have yet in their totality to be enshrined
in national legislation. Even that however would not resolve all issues, first
and foremost among them the requirement of an exit visa to leave the country.

An Amnesty International report published earlier this year
charged that migrant workers involved in World Cup-related infrastructure were
still subjected to “appalling” human rights abuses six years after the hosting
of the tournament was awarded to Qatar and at the halfway mark since the
hosting rights were awarded to the Gulf state. The 2022 Qatari committee has
said issues in the report have since been addressed.

Qatar moreover recently announced that a major international
union, Building and Wood Workers International (BWI), would be included in
inspections of World Cup construction sites in the Gulf state. Italian company Salini
Impregilo, one the companies surveyed, earlier signed an agreement with BWI and
Italian construction unions to promote and respect human rights and has allowed
BWI to visit its worker accommodations in Qatar.

The onus on FIFA to ensure adherence to workers and human
rights meanwhile is about to increase with the soccer body’s decision to take
over responsibility for preparations of World Cups starting with the Qatar
tournament.

FIFA earlier this year endorsed a report it had commissioned
from Harvard international affairs and human rights professor John Ruggie, a
former United Nations Secretary-General special representative for business and
human rights. Mr. Ruggie provided advice on how FIFA should embed the UN’s
Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights into everything it does.

Less than a quarter of the companies approached for the
survey by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre deemed it appropriate
to respond despite FIFA and Qatar’s public commitments to workers and human
rights. Less than 40 percent of the companies approached publicly expressed a
commitment to human rights and only 17 percent refer to international
standards. Only three publicly acknowledge rights of migrant workers.

The survey noted that three UAE companies - Arabtec, BK Gulf
(a subsidiary of UK-headquartered Balfour Beatty), Habtoor Leighton Group, and
Al Jaber Group – that had failed to respond to the survey were recipients of
the Emirates’ 2016 Taqdeer Award for excellence in labour relations.

Similarly, none of the companies with headquarters in Asia --
China, India, Japan, Malaysia and South Korea – responded.

“The lack of response represents a missed opportunity to
demonstrate the actions they are taking to adhere to the Workers’ Welfare
Standards of Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy,” the 2022
Qatari committee, the survey noted.

The survey singled out several companies that had taken
steps to improve safeguards for migrant workers. Those companies include Vinci
(QDVC), a joint venture between Qatar Diar Real Estate Investment Company, a
subsidiary of the Gulf state’s sovereign wealth fund, and France’s VINCI (QDVC)
Construction Grand Projects. Ironically, Sherpa, a French human rights group,
accused VINCI last year of employing forced labour and "keeping people in
servitude." VINCI, which employs 3,500 people in Qatar, denied the charges
and threatened to sue Sherpa.

The survey said the willingness of companies to publicly
detail their commitment to workers and human rights was important because “transparency
on human rights issues has been an important driver of progress in other
sectors. It generates examples of best practice that can be shared publicly
with others and replicated, and enables accountability such that civil society,
investors and others can hold companies to their stated actions, or call them
out for inaction.”

Beyond health, safety, worker accommodation and timely payment
of wages, the survey identified fair recruitment based on the principle of the
employer pays, freedom of movement, worker input, and supply chain
accountability as key issues that companies needed to address. The survey noted
that the most progressive companies had found ways to circumvent Gulf
restrictions on freedom of association and collective organisation.

Best practices included personal storage compartments in
workers’ living quarters provided by Vinci (QDVC) and Laing O’Rourke to ensure
that workers have sole custody of their passports in a country in which
employers often illegally confiscate travel documents.

Vinci (QDVC) alongside Laing O’ Rourke, Multiplex, Salini
Impregilo, SNC-Lavalin ensure that recruitment companies that illegally charge
workers exorbitant fees reimbursed those recruited. Workers often arrive in
Qatar and other Gulf states heavily indebted as a result of recruitment fees
even though they are banned by law in Qatar and the UAE.

Carillion, Laing O’Rourke and Salini Impregilo said they
supported the principle of freedom of association by providing workers in the
Gulf with alternative means of expression and collective organising through
worker welfare committees.

“Committed and concerted action by the construction industry
holds the potential to prevent exploitation and drive genuine improvements in
the lives of millions of workers around the world. While our outreach has
identified some promising leading examples, the entire sector has a long way to
travel to fulfil its human rights commitments,” the survey concluded.

Thursday, December 1, 2016

The short answer to the question framing this session is: where
does one start? If things in the Middle East and North Africa were not
complicated enough, answering the question has been made even more difficult by
the rise of Donald Trump, and the fact that no one, maybe not even he, has an
idea about what his policy towards the various crises in the Middle East and
North Africa will be, or what his attitude might be towards individual
countries in the region.

So, rather than speculate or get bogged down in the excruciating
detail of individual conflicts like those in Syria, Iraq, Libya or Yemen, what
I would like to do is look at fundamental issues that weave themselves like a
red thread through whatever conflict or crisis one looks at. These include the
ones named in the title of this session – Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen – as
well as the phenomenon of militant political Islam, the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, and the Saudi-Iranian struggle for regional dominance and global
hegemony in the Muslim world.

Many blame the disintegration of post-colonial nation states like
Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen, on the drawing of artificial borders by colonial
powers as symbolized by the Sykes Picot agreement. If that were true, we would
see a similar development across Africa. For much of the second half of the 20th
century, many feared that any secession would have a domino effect across the
continent. That was the concern with Biafra in the 1960s. Yet, the Organization
of African Unity’s recognition of the Frente Polisario, the Algerian-backed
liberation movement of the Western Sahara, in the 1980s, and the independence
of Eritrea in 1991 after a 27-year long guerrilla war remain isolated events.

Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen are falling apart not because they
are artificial constructs created by colonial powers but because they were
ruled by autocratic governments who were exclusive rather than inclusive. That
is to say, significant segments of the population often defined in religious or
ethnic terms had no real stake in society and the state. In fact, that is the
state of affairs across much of the Middle East and North Africa. Think of
Palestinians, Kurds, Shiites, Christians – just to name a few. Radicalisation
moreover is being fuelled by misguided foreign policies as well as repressive,
exclusionary domestic strategies that produce social marginalization, huge gaps
in income distribution, and dislocation of resources in corrupt autocracies
with youth bulges that populate a swath of land stretching from the Atlantic
coast of Africa to the Indian Ocean. If
this sounds familiar, widespread discontent in the Middle East and North Africa
is indeed part of a global trend, albeit perhaps its most brutal and violent
expression.

One reason for this is that the Middle East and North Africa are
populated by regimes that have a demonstrated willingness to defend the essence
of the status quo at whatever price. That price can be the destruction of whole
countries as in Syria and Yemen. These regimes see their survival in the
shaping of the region in their own mould and do not shy away from stoking
conflict and aiming for regime change when and where it suits their interest.
External powers like the Soviet Union in the past and Russia today as well as
the United States were actively or passively supported the policies of their
regional allies.

As a result, no Middle Eastern or North African state or external
power emerges from this smelling like a rose. In the days of the cold war it
was Soviet-backed revolutionary regimes like Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Libya and
Algeria versus primarily monarchical conservatives. Post-Soviet Union, ideology
has made place for pure power plays. The one exception to this rule is the 1979
Islamic revolution in Iran, one of the 20th centuries few truly
popular revolutions.

The Iranian revolution challenged the region’s existing order
before and after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. It represents an
existential threat to the conservatives, and particularly to Saudi Arabia’s
ruling Al Saud family. The challenge is multi-fold: a republic rather than a
monarchy established as the result of a truly popular revolt that toppled a
monarch and an icon of US power in the region. Adding fuel to the fire, Iran’s
republican version of an Islamic government is legitimized by an
institutionalized, albeit flawed, electoral process and a degree of popular
sovereignty, that pays lip service to revolutionary goals.

The Saudis were quick to recognize the existential challenge posed
by Iran’s Islamic revolution. They decided early on that they had no choice but
to confront it aggressively both regionally and globally. If any one conflict
has shaped the Middle East and North Africa, its various conflicts and multiple
crises as well as the fate of Muslim majority countries beyond the region and
Muslim minority communities elsewhere, it is the epic struggle between Saudi
Arabia and Iran for regional hegemony as well as dominance in the Muslim world.

This is not to deny the fact that national governments and
non-state actors were and are important actors in the Saudi soft power
ploy. The result of this confluence of
interests has been devastating. It includes wars like the one between Iraq and
Iran in the 1980s that left up to a million people dead; the devastation of
countries like Iraq, Syria and Pakistan that are wracked by violence in which
sectarian conflict was fuelled by both parties; and the spread of religious,
inward-looking, intolerant and supremacist ultra-conservatism that offers the
discontent and disenfranchised a refuge and creates an environment that in
given circumstances serves as a breeding ground for religiously-packaged
militancy.

Iran’s revolutionary zeal, despite the emergence of Hezbollah as a
potent trans-national Shiite militia force, past Iranian support of Hamas in
Gaza and the Islamic republic’s opportunistic alliance with the Houthis in
Yemen petered out in all but word in the first year of the revolution. The
Iraqi war against Iran funded largely by Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent
smaller Gulf states gave rise to Iranian nationalism. Iran fought its proxy
battles with the Saudis primarily in the region itself. For Iran, it was a
battle about power and a struggle against an inherently discriminatory ideology
that targeted its interpretation of the faith.

For the Saudis, it was one that was ultimately existential and
about survival. It was not simply regional for the Al Sauds. It was global
given the kingdom’s claim to leadership of the Muslim world based on its
custody of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina and the Al Saud’s power sharing
arrangement with an ultra-conservative clergy ideologically committed to
spreading its interpretation of the faith.

The Saudi determination to counter the Iranian revolutionary
threat by defeating rather than containing it has ever since shaped Saudi
policy towards the Islamic republic and towards Shiites. To be sure, Iran
repeatedly took the bait with the creation of Hezbollah, political protests
during the haj in Mecca, the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia,
to name just a few of the incidents.

Saudi Arabia’s response to Iran’s revolutionary appeal was to make
an ultra-conservative worldview that emphasized denunciation of Muslim others
like the Shiites, Ahmadis and Sufis as well as a supremacist worldview and
arch-conservative family values an influential player in Muslim communities
across the globe. The Saudi effort produced the single largest dedicated public
diplomacy campaign in history.

Estimates of Saudi spending on the funding of Muslim cultural,
religious and educational institutions across the globe range from $75 to $100
billion. This figure does not include the cost of forging close ties to
non-Wahhabi Muslim religious and political leaders, militaries and intelligence
agencies in various Muslim nations in a bid to ensure that they bought into the
geopolitical elements of Saudi-backed ultra-conservatism, first and foremost
among which anti-Shiism. It also does not include expenditure on armed groups
in Syria, Iraq, Bosnia or Pakistan where Saudi Arabia has funded militant,
violent and rabidly anti-Shiite and anti-Ahmadi groups responsible for the
deaths of thousands It also does not take into account the financial cost of
Saudi-backing of the US-led anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s with
its devastating consequences for both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

On one level, the Saudi campaign has been phenomenally successful.
Saudi-backed ultra-conservatism in whatever form ranging from Wahhabism to
various strands of Salafism to Deobandism has been embedded in Muslim
communities across the world and is an influential political player in the
Middle East and North Africa as well as countries as far flung as Malaysia,
Indonesia, Pakistan, Mali and minority communities in Western Europe.

Let me illustrate this with an anecdote. The man who was until
recently deputy head of Indonesian intelligence and deputy head of Nahdlatul
Ulema, one of the world’s largest Islamic movements that professes to be
anti-Wahhabi, is a fluent Arabic speaker. He spent 12 years in the Middle East
representing the Indonesian intelligence service, eight of those in Saudi
Arabia. This man professes in the same breath his dislike of the Wahhabis and
at the same time warns that Shiites, who constitute 1.2 percent of the
Indonesian population and that includes the estimated 2 million Sunni converts
over the last 40 years, are one of the foremost domestic threats to Indonesian
national security. This man is not instinctively anti-Shiite, but sees Shiites
as an Iranian fifth wheel. The impact of Saudi funding is such that even
Nahdlatul Ulema is forced to adopt ultra-conservative language and concepts when
it comes to perceptions of the threat posed by Iran and Shiites.

Yet, 40 years since the Saudi soft power grab moved into full
gear, its success has become as much a liability as it is an asset with the
kingdom moving into the firing line against the backdrop of demands that it
live up to its responsibility for creating potential breeding grounds for
radicalism and devastating whole countries as with the Saudi military
intervention in Yemen. The problem is compounded by the fact that the Al Sauds
were not always in full control of the use of monies invested in the campaign.
As a result, they have let a genie out of the bottle that now leads an
independent life, has in part turned on the Saudis themselves, and that can’t
be put back into the bottle.

The Saudi-Iranian battle is further accentuated by uncertainty
over US policy. That is certainly true with the rise of Trump who from an
Iranian perspective has made comments that spark concern in Tehran as well as
remarks that could hearten the Iranians. Saudi uncertainty predates the rise of
Trump. US officials for much of their country’s relationship with Saudi Arabia
have insisted that the two countries do not share common values, that their
relationship is based on common interests.

Underlying the now cooler relations between Washington and Riyadh
is the fact that those interests are diverging. The divergence became evident
with the eruption of popular revolts in 2011 and particularly US criticism of
the Saudi military intervention in Bahrain to squash a rebellion as well as hesitant
American support for the toppling of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. It is
also obvious in the nuclear agreement with Iran that is returning the Islamic
republic to the international fold despite deep-felt Saudi objections.

The result of all of this has been with the rise of the Salmans,
King Salman and his powerful son, deputy crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, a
far more assertive foreign and military policy. Make however no mistake, Saudi
Arabia’s new assertiveness is not a declaration of independence from the United
States. On the contrary, Mohammed Bin Salman has made that clear in various
interviews. It was designed, certainly in the era of Obama, to force the United
States to reengage in the Middle East in the belief that it will constitute a
return to the status ante quo: US support for the kingdom as the best guarantor
for regional stability. The Salmans were operating on the basis of Marx’s
Verelendungstheorie: things have to get worse to get better. It is a strategy
that may or may not work with Trump.

The Saudi strategy with its pervasive impact on the Middle East
and the Muslim world at large long made perfect sense. Saudi regional
leadership amounted to exploitation of a window of opportunity rather than
reliance on the assets and power needed to sustain it. Saudi Arabia’s interest
is and was to extend its window of opportunity for as long as possible. That
window of opportunity exists as long as the obvious regional powers – Iran,
Turkey and Egypt – are in various degrees of disrepair. Punitive international
sanctions and international isolation long took care of Iran.

Ironically, Trump could extend that window if he adopts a hard
line towards Iran. That is for the Saudis nonetheless a double-edged sword.
Saudi policy makers have come to see restrictions on Iranian nuclear policy
even if they are for a period of 15 years at most as an asset. The problem for
the Saudis is that Trump at times has also suggested a harder US approach towards
the kingdom itself.

A concern for the Saudis that is more fundamental than uncertainty
over US policy in the era of Trump is that Iran despite not being an Arab
nation and maintaining a sense of Persian superiority has the assets Saud
Arabia lacks to secure its position on a level playing field as a regional
power rather than a second fiddle state. Those assets no matter how degraded
include a large population base, an industrial base, resources, a
battle-hardened military, a deep-rooted culture, a history of empire and a
geography that makes it a crossroads. Mecca and money will not be able to
compete, and certainly not with religious ultra-conservatism playing a key
influential role.

Saudi Arabia was shell shocked on September 11, 2001, when it
became evident that most of the perpetrators were Saudi nationals. Saudi
society was put under the kind of scrutiny the kingdom had never experienced
before. The same is happening again today with the rise of jihadism, the war in
Yemen and the kingdom’s role in Iraq, Syria and Pakistan.

Changing international attitudes towards Saudi sectarianism and
its proxy wars against Iran are evident in a quiet conclusion in Western
intelligence and policy circles that the crisis in Syria is in part a product
of the international community’s indulgence of Saudi propagation of
ultra-conservatism. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director John Brennan
unsuccessfully tried in 2011 as peaceful anti-regime protests in Syria
descended into violence to persuade Saudi Arabia at a meeting in Washington of
Middle Eastern intelligence chiefs to stop supporting militant Sunni Muslim
Islamist fighters in Syria. ‎An advisor to the Joint
Chiefs of Staff recounted that the Saudis ignored Brennan's request. They
"went back home and increased their efforts with the extremists and asked
us for more technical support. And we say OK, and so it turns out that we end
up reinforcing the extremists," the advisor said.

In sum, if inclusion rather than exclusion is the fundamental
answer to the Middle East and North Africa’s multiple conflicts, countering
Saudi-backed ultra-conservatism is one major key to breaking the vicious cycle.
That is obviously easier said than done and only part of any successful effort.
Islamic ultra-conservatism is often no longer dependent on Saudi funding and
has made such deep inroads into societies as well as governments as for example
in Pakistan that it would likely take a generation to turn around. Saudi
Arabia’s soft power campaign has also sprouted radical groups that see the
Saudis no longer as an inspiration but as corrupt deviants to a fundamentally
common interpretation of the faith. As a result, Saudi Arabia is both part of
the problem and part of the solution. All of this leaves me where I began my
remarks: Where does one start in assessing what can be improved in the Middle
East and North Africa. Saudi Arabia is not the only place, but it is certainly
one that together with Iran has its fingers in the region’s key pies.

Monday, November 28, 2016

Saudi Arabia has approved the privatization of state-owned
sports clubs as part of Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s drive to
streamline bureaucracy, curb public spending, diversify the kingdom’s
oil-dependent economy, and upgrade its autocracy.

The effort to clean up the sports sector follows the rare
admission earlier this year of a match-fixing scandal as well as a financial
crisis that offered a glimpse of the daunting task and pitfalls involved in Prince
Mohammed’s reform plan.

The kingdom’s Council of Economic and Development Affairs
(CEDA) headed by Prince Mohammed earlier this month ordered sports authorities
to create a fund that would provide loans to financially troubled clubs. The
council said the fund would create 40,000 new jobs but offered no further
detail.

Similarly, few details were provided about how the clubs,
some of which are controlled by members of the ruling Al Saud family, would be
privatized beyond a statement saying that the council of ministers chaired by
King Salman had decided to turn them into commercial ventures.

Cleaning up soccer, the kingdom’s most popular sport, serves
to achieve Prince Mohammed’s goals of greater international competitiveness as
well as engagement of Saudis in exercise that were spelled out in his Vision
2030, a framework for economic and social reform announced last April.

Privatization of sports clubs, particularly those that have
premier league soccer teams, is however where political risk and economic
necessity meet in Prince Mohammed’s effort to introduce economic and social
reform while ensuring that his ruling Al Saud family retains tight political
control.

The clean-up of Saudi soccer constitutes a microcosm of how
the government and the Al Sauds hope to root out corruption, introduce some
degree of transparency, and cater to the aspirations of a young population
without surrendering absolute political control.

The Saudi Arabian Football Federation (SAFF) sought to
demonstrate the government’s sincerity by relegating in July Al Majma’ah-based
premier league club Al Mujjazel to the second division for having fixed a match
with rival Al Jeel Club. Match fixing had helped Al Mujjazel graduate from the
3rd to the 1st League in a mere two years.

The punishment of Al Mujjazel followed the relegation three
years ago of two handball teams, Al Safa FC and Mudhar HC, the first ever in
the kingdom’s sports history. The relegations constituted a clear message in a
country in which members of the ruling family often interfered with referees
and management when clubs were not performing to their liking.

The relegation also followed publication earlier this year
of a schedule for clubs to pay off their debts and the imposition of a ban on
the hiring of foreign players.

Included in the schedule were Al Ahli Saudi FC which is
linked to Prince Faisal bin Khaled bin Abdullah, Al Hilal FC that is headed by
Prince Nawaf bin Saad, Al Shabab FC that falls under the auspices of Prince
Khaled Bin Sultan, and Al Nasser FC which is controlled by Prince Faisal bin
Turki bin Nasser.

Sources close to the federation noted that the schedule
listed for Al Nasser only $453,400 in debts to the soccer association even
though the club’s total debt is asserted to be approximately $70 million. If
correct, it would make Al Nasser Saud Arabia’s most indebted club after Al
Ittihad FC, which owes $76 million. Al Ahli’s total debt was listed at $40
million, Al Hilal’s at $36.5 million and Al Shabab at $19.4 million.

“The game of football played by all sports clubs in Saudi
Arabia is just like the competition between the business enterprises in which
each football club tries to become the best team in the country and hence gain
name, fame and superiority over other clubs, or rather say superiority over
other princes who are behind the rival clubs,” wrote Sharaf Sabri in a book
published more than a decade ago, The House of Saud in Commerce: A Study of
Royal Entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Sabri put his finger on the problem the federation is
likely to have in cleaning up the kingdom’s premier soccer league, a problem
Prince Mohammed will encounter across the board with members of the ruling
family having a finger in many pies and not wanting to see their perks
compromised.

If that were not difficult enough, the government will also want
to ensure that privatization does not weaken its control of sports in general
and of soccer in particular given the pitch’s proven potential of serving as a
rallying point for anti-government sentiment in a region governed by regimes
that seek to tightly control all public space.

Saudi Arabia has long had a complex relationship with soccer
because it evokes passions similar to those sparked by religion. Saudi clerics
rolled out mobile mosques during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa to persuade
fans gathered in cafes to watch matches to observe obligatory prayer times.

The government, in the development in recent years of the
kingdom’s first national sports plan, initially considered emphasizing
individual rather than team sports because of soccer’s political volatility,
but was forced to drop the idea given the game’s enormous popularity.

The risks involved in a loss of control of soccer were
evident in 2013 when a Facebook page entitled Nasrawi Revolution demanded the
resignation of Prince Faisal, a burly nephew of the late King Abdullah who
sports a moustache and chin hair, as head of Al Nasser. A You Tube video
captured Prince Faisal seemingly being pelted and chanted against as he rushed
off the soccer pitch after rudely shoving a security official aside.

The campaign against Prince Faisal followed the unprecedented
resignation a year earlier of Prince Nawaf bin Feisal as head of the SAFF, the
first Gulf royal to be persuaded by public pressure to step down. Prince
Nawaf’s resignation led to the election of a commoner, storied former player
Ahmed Eid Alharbi, who is widely viewed as a reformer and proponent of women’s
soccer in a country in which women struggle to secure the right to physical
exercise and education and participation in sports.

“The Saudis are extremely worried. Soccer clubs rather than
the mosque are likely to be the centre of any revolution. Kids go more to
stadiums than to mosques. They are not religious, they are not ruled by
religious dogma,” said Washington-based Saudi dissident Ali al-Ahmad, who heads
the Gulf Institute.

Mr. Al-Ahmad was referring to the power of clerics preaching
Wahhabism, the puritan interpretation of Islam developed by 18th century
preacher Mohammed ibn Abdul Al-Wahhab. Saudi Arabia’s ruling Al Saud family
established the kingdom with the help of the Wahhabis who in return were
granted the right to ensure that their views would dominate public life.

In a recent, unpublished survey by a Saudi scholar half of
the young Saudi men interviewed said their priority was to have fun, go on a
date, enjoy mixed gender parties, dress freely, and drive fast.

Recognizing the ambitions of Saudi youth, who account for much
of the population, Prince Mohammed’s Vision 2030 acknowledged that ”we are well
aware that the cultural and entertainment opportunities currently available do
not reflect the rising aspirations of our citizens and residents, nor are they
in harmony with our prosperous economy.”

Countering corruption and sanitizing soccer financially
serves that purpose. It also could serve as a template for how Prince Mohammed
introduces transparency and accountability in an economy in which members of
the ruling family have long felt entitled and able to act with impunity.

Friday, November 25, 2016

In a statement to press earlier this month, Palestinian football
chief Jibril Rajoub said
he would file a claim at CAS unless FIFA agrees to relocate the teams when the
world football body holds its council meeting next January.

“We
will not give up. We will never accept any compromise,” he said.

The
dispute centres on six football clubs playing in Israel’s lower divisions that
are based in Israeli settlements on the West Bank.

The
Palestinian FA says the location of the teams violates FIFA rules, which state
that football clubs from FIFA member affiliates – such as the Israeli FA – may
not play on the territory of other football associations without their
permission.

Palestine
considers the settlements to be built on its own territory, which is illegally
occupied under international law. It argues that the clubs are playing there
without the permission of the Palestinian FA, which has been recognised by FIFA
since 1998.

FIFA has established a special monitoring committee – headed by
South African anti-apartheid campaigner and former FIFA presidential candidate Tokyo Sexwale – to
consider the complaints against the Israeli FA, but so far talks have proved
unsuccessful.

This week Sexwale held meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and
Palestinian president Mahmoud
Abbas to discuss the Israeli clubs based in the settlements, as
well as the movement of footballers and football goods in and out of
Palestinian territory.

Academic and journalist James Dorsey, the author of a blog entitled
“The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer”, says the recent election of Donald
Trump as US president is likely to give “reinforced impetus” to Palestinian
plans to file at CAS.

“The
indications are that Trump will reverse long-standing US policy that views the
West Bank as occupied territory and the settlements as illegal. The question is
then whether FIFA would issue a decision which is directly at odds with US
policy”, he said.

Any
filing at CAS would constitute a first testing of Palestine’s ability to fight
its battle with Israel in international forums. The court’s handling of the
issue could prove significant in light of Palestine’s accession to the Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court in early 2015, which paves the way
for war crimes prosecutions arising from its conflict with Israel.

It is
not the first time the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has arisen in a sporting
context. Earlier this year Scottish football club Glasgow Celtic was fined by
the governing body of European football, UEFA, for displaying Palestinian flags
in a Champions League qualifier against Israeli club Hapoel Be’er Sheva.

Monday, November 21, 2016

Human Rights Watch (HRW), in an initial probing of the
impact of the rise of US President-elect Donald J. Trump, has asked the United
Nations Commissioner for Human Rights to include world soccer body FIFA in a
registry of enterprises that do business with Israeli settlements on the West
Bank.

The request is based on the fact that the Israel Football
Association (IFA) organizes matches in Israeli settlements and allows six
settlement teams to play in Israeli Leagues. The Palestine Football Association
(PFA) backed by HRW has denounced the Israeli policy as a violation of FIFA
policy that stipulates that teams can only play on the territory of another
FIFA member with that member’s permission.

Like much of the international community, the PFA and HRW
view Israeli settlements as illegal. In response, the IFA has argued that the
settlements are disputed territory whose status has yet to be resolved in
Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.

Tokyo Sexwale, the head of a FIFA committee established to
deal with Israeli-Palestinian soccer issues, is scheduled to visit Israel this
week. Mr. Sexwale’s visit and the HRW request take on added significance in the
wake of the rise of Mr. Trump.

Trump insiders have suggested that the president-elect would
reverse long-standing US policy that has viewed the West Bank conquered by
Israel during the 1967 Middle East war as occupied territory and Israeli
settlements as illegal and has argued that they constitute an obstacle to
Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Israeli anticipation of a US policy that is far more
empathetic to hard-line Israeli policy has already prompted an Israeli
government committee to approve a draft bill that would legalize Jewish
settlement outposts built on private Palestinian land. The bill is slated to go
to the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, for the first of three separate
readings and possible approval by the Supreme Court.

The bill suggests that Mr. Sexwale will find little traction
in this week’s talks with Israeli Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev. FIFA’s
governing council is scheduled to decide the fate of the settlement clubs in
early January. Mr. Sexwale has said that
any such decision may need to be ratified by the FIFA Congress expected to be
held in Bahrain in May.

The Israeli draft bill also suggests that Israel will be far
less receptive to demands that it adhere to international law governing the
status of occupied territory. Israeli perceptions are reinforced by reports
that Mr. Trump intends to appoint Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee as his
ambassador to Israel.

Mr. Huckabee, a staunch supporter of Israeli settlements and
advocate of moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a position
espoused by Mr. Trump during his election campaign, denied that the
president-elect had discussed his appointment during a meeting last week.

The HRW request builds not only on international law
regarding the status of the West Bank as occupied territory but also on a
decision by a Swiss government-sponsored unit of the Paris-based Organization
of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to classify FIFA as a
multi-national bound by the group's guidelines rather than a non-governmental
organization.

The request is also rooted in a report commissioned by FIFA
in which John Ruggie, a Harvard professor and former UN Secretary-General
special representative for business and human rights, that urges the soccer
body to subscribe to the UN’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

With a US administration likely to be far more empathetic to
Israeli policy than past US governments toward the West Bank, the HRW request
fits Palestinian strategy that has in recent years increasingly focused on
confronting Israel in international organizations and the possibility of
challenging Israeli occupation in the International Criminal Court (ICC).

That strategy has so far produced mixed results. Mr. Sexwale’s
committee was created last year after the PFA failed to garner sufficient votes
to force FIFA to suspend Israel’s membership.

Mr. Trump’s election has moreover raised the prospect of a
host of illiberal leaders potentially refusing to recognize international law.
China refused to recognize an ICC ruling on the South China Sea even before Mr.
Trump’s rise, Russia has since withdrawn from the ICC, and the Philippines has suggested
that it may follow suit.

Mr. Trump’s rise is likely to give reinforced impetus to the
PFA’s plans to go to the world’s top court for sports in a bid to force its
Israeli counterpart to view Israeli settlements on the West Bank as occupied
territory rather than an extension of the Jewish state. The move would
constitute a first testing of Palestine’s ability to fight its battle with
Israel in international courts.

The dynamics of the HRW request and the Palestinians’
strategy take on greater significance in the Trump era in which the United
States itself may demonstrate greater disregard for international organizations
and law.

A more pro-Israeli US policy could moreover complicate a
willingness by Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, to openly engage with Israel based
on a common interest oppose expanding Iranian influence in the Middle East and
North Africa despite the Jewish state’s de facto rejection of Palestinian
rights.

A IFA delegation will be attending the FIFA Congress in
Bahrain, where the fate of Israeli settlement teams could ultimately be sealed.
The presence of an Israeli delegation in a Gulf capital despite a Gulf ban on
Israeli passport holders would follow the opening of an Israeli diplomatic
mission in the United Arab Emirates accredited to the Abu Dhabi-based
International Renewable Energy Agency rather than the UAE government.

The rise of Mr. Trump potentially throws a monkey wrench
into Middle Eastern politics, the fallout of which is uncertain. The rise of a
more pro-Israeli US administration that projects Islamophobia and questions
long-standing US policies and partnerships could complicate the Gulf’s more
open alignment with Israel. Palestinian efforts backed by HRW to enforce
international law on the soccer pitch may well offer an early indication of how
the new winds blowing from Washington will play out in the Middle East and
North Africa.

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile